United Kingdom General Elections: December 12th, 2019

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Of course given that 'disgruntled retiring/former MP endorses other party' and 'row over brazenly rigged selection' are staples of every election*, in some respects you're left back where you started: clearly these things only mattered because a substantial slice of the normal Labour vote was feeling mutinous. But I think 'national factors; intensified' is about right in this instance.

_{*I.e. what happened at Bassetlaw was certainly... unusual... but elsewhere it was normal bad practice.}

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Blair's crossover appeal when he was actually running for office was in fact not, primarily, to uselectionatlas dot org slash FORUM user Blairite types.

What people need to understand about Mr Tony is that he was a very attentive constituency MP and modeled his analysis of British society and how Labour could/should adapt to the ways in which it was changing based on his constituency and how it had changed* and was continuing to change. In other words, he was (and even now is despite his views swinging a mile to the right since), in practice, much more of a Marxist than Corbyn and co. Classless populism was never what New Labour went in for, even if it may have seemed that way if you were not part of the target audience.

_{*The last pit there (Fishburn) closed five years before he became an MP and that was only a drift mine. Large-scale employment in the coal industry ended there, as in most of the rest of Durham, in the late 1960s.}

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It appears that both Austin and John Woodcock have been nominated for peerages by the Tories after their services to them during the election campaign and indeed previously.

(though thinking about it, the latter's intervention doesn't seem to have had the same effect in Barrow - yes I know the Tories won and everything, but.....)

But the result there did not look like the result in Dudley North, yes. Despite the constituency's main employer.

I suppose one difference is that Austin* went at it with more enthusiasm and, frankly, was always a more effective politician and so knew what sort of language to pick for maximum impact. He also has very good contacts in the regional media.

_{*The government giving him, especially, a peerage is not a very clever move from their perspective? Strange.}

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Spennymoor is an odd one because it the area it covered comprises what are, under even halfway 'normal' GE circumstances, the most Labour bits of N.W. Durham, Durham City and Bishop Auckland. Complicating that further is the possibility that the incumbent in the former might have underperformed especially in that part of the constituency (or perhaps in parts of that part) for various reasons involving her own behaviour.

Though the main thing you always note when you look at its boundaries is quite how bad depopulation in the area has been since the 1920s; the idea of those towns forming a constituency together now would be a joke.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Rothwell is an oddity for different reasons. There's just no point even in making comparisons. Long ago and far away, a very different Yorkshire:

[Filuwaúrdjan]

What story is this referring to? I wasn't aware she paid enough attention to the constituency to alienate specific parts of it in particular.

The nasty business with the public bullying of Hilary Armstrong over signing the open letter criticising Corbyn over antisemitism. Got a lot of attention locally at least. Those towns on the Wear were the political base of the Armstrong family (she herself was a councillor in Crook once) who remain very well regarded, particularly with people over a certain age; there's a local football trophy named for Ernest, which gives some indication.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

[Should probably note that the old Broxtowe constituency is mostly modern-day Ashfield & Sherwood...

One of the biggest parts (Arnold) is actually in what is now Gedling.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yes, the old Don Valley encompasses most of the current constituency as well as Doncaster North, with Doncaster Central being similar to the old Doncaster seat. As you say, though, this still probably wouldn't make much difference here.

Major difference between the 1918-50 and 1950-83 Don Valley actually; the former did not include Bentley and so on (which were then in Doncaster), while the latter did. So the latter is a clear predecessor of the current Doncaster North (a lot of the current Don Valley was in Goole), but the former isn't that close to any existing constituency.

Related: large parts of the 1918-50 vintage of Rother Valley are in various eastern Sheffield constituencies now.